It is generally acknowledged that perception of and orientation in space are determinant factors in human action and interaction. As such, speech mainly depends on knowledge of the context: Where and When is a sentence uttered, and by Whom. These three dimensions are traditionally seen as the so-called deictic center of all linguistic events, without which no linguistic expression can be properly interpreted.

With deixis we mean here all cues provided by a language that localized a speech event and its participants (Speaker, Hearer and narrated participant) in space and time. Anderson and Keenan (1985) distinguish three major categories of deixis: person deixis, spatial deixis and temporal deixis. The category linking social and psychological factors is tentatively labelled as‘psychological’ deixis at the workshop.